1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to structures using lenticular lens materials or sheets to produce images, and, more particularly, to maps and other information-presenting objects that include printed images having interlaced strips from multiple images that have been created based on discrete sets of data that has been aligned or mapped to a shared, single set of spatial data, such as coordinates defining a geographic boundary or a spatial boundary of a natural or manmade structure.
2. Relevant Background
The production and sale of printed maps is a large worldwide industry with the sale of consumer maps exceeding $400 million and other maps exceeding $2.5 billion (United States dollars). Maps are produced for numerous niche markets to provide select information on a single printed map with the look and feel of each map typically being different. For example, a tourist visiting a city would most likely purchase a street map to be able to drive in the city or otherwise navigate the unfamiliar city. The tourist would further use a tourist-oriented map providing locations of famous landmarks and places of interest. Often, this second map is provided in a different scale and is less accurate than the street map and may only show selected streets to try to minimize the information complexity of the map. The tourist further may need to use a public transportation map, such as a subway map, a bus map, and/or a train map. These transportation maps again provide only select geographic reference points, which may or may not be provided on the street map or landmark map, and may differ in scale and orientation from the other two maps. As a result, the tourist needs to carry three or more maps to navigate the city, and often will have difficulty translating information from one map to another, let alone finding the space to spread all of their maps out for viewing.
The problem of how best to present multiple sets of geographically related or otherwise spatially related information is not limited to map design and publishing. Architects and civil engineers typically use multiple drawings of a building or structure each showing different types of information, but this again requires a user to spread out or open the multiple drawings, which are generally quite large, at the same time to try to cross-reference information on the various drawings. Such drawings or portions of these drawings can include safety information such as evacuation routes, shelter locations, and the like to be used by building occupants. In the medical field, different systems of the human body are generally shown in different drawings making it difficult for a user to quickly identify the spatial relationships of the various systems. Overlays of partially transparent material have been used with some success in the medical field and other fields, but these overlay systems have not been fully adapted in part because a user is forced to flip back and forth between the pages to see the spatial relationships. The complexity of this information has led to the development of relatively sophisticated and expensive devices utilizing electronic and digitally-enabled methods, such as geographic information systems (GIS) for viewing maps and similar information and digitized anatomical atlases for organisms.
Hence, there remains a need for a method of producing maps and other informational devices that allows multiple sets of spatially-related information to be presented to a viewer or user while addressing the need to control information overload or high complexity. Preferably, such a method would be relatively inexpensive to implement, i.e., utilize existing technologies in new ways where practical, such that cost of the produced maps and other objects would be similar to currently marketed products. Further, it is desirable that the produced maps and objects have form factors that are similar to existing products to enhance user adoption of the new products.